A quick video overview of Extensis Suitcase Fusion 7. You can read my review here.
Tagged: Suitcase
Extensis updates Fusion 6
Extensis has updated Suitcase Fusion 6 to add full compatibility with Mac OS X El Capitan (OS X 10.11) and Adobe Creative Cloud 2015.
The update is free for all Suitcase Fusion 6 users. The update download link can be found on the El Capitan compatibility announcement page.
Suitcase Fusion 6: Another fontspirational update
There are two utilities I install on every new Mac I use, the same two I’ve been installing before anything else since the mid-to-late 90s. Default Folder, and Extensis Suitcase.
Upgrades over the years have added new features, but their core functionality hasn’t changed much—other than they just keep working better with age. And that’s why I like them so much.
Extensis Suitcase Fusion started out as a simple font activation tool, but over the years it has grown into a complete font management system. While competing font managers struggle to add “me-too” features, Suitcase Fusion has built upon its core font activation tools with features that professionals with large font collections and a love for typography can truly use and appreciate. And rather than just throw frivolous features against the wall to see what sticks, Extensis has worked hard to only add the best ones, the most useful ones—and make sure they work as advertised.
Suitcase Fusion 6 continues down the path of slow-and-steady wins the race. At first glance, existing users will likely only see a slight interface update to look more at home with Mac OS X Yosemite. But there is a little more than meets the eye. (more…)
Suitcase Fusion updates adds experimentation and inspiration
Extensis released a new update for Suitcase Fusion 5, the best font manager for the Mac on the market (in my opinion). This latest update is free to existing Fusion 5 users, and advances features which foster design inspiration, including a new Fontspiration panel which showcases the latest and most cutting edge typography via a Pinterest feed. Clicking on an image in the panel loads the Pinterest page containing the image, where you can also view the rest of the Extensis Fontspiration Pinterest Board.
The update also doubles the collection of QuickComp templates, a new feature introduced in Suitcase Fusion 5 that allows you to quickly view font combinations in various pre-built layouts for magazines, newspapers, and mobile formats.
I’ve reviewed Suitcase Fusion’s features in the past, and this update adds even more for designers who use a wide variety of fonts in their day-to-day work. There are certainly other font managers out there, but I’ve not come across one that offers more useful tools beyond simple font organization the way Fusion does.
The update to Suitcase Fusion 5 update is free. New users can purchase it for $99.95 or try the free demo to see if it fits into your creative workflow.
Get an Amazon gift card with purchase of Extensis Suitcase Fusion 5
Extensis has a gift just in time for the holidays — get an Amazon.com Gift Card with the purchase of Suitcase Fusion 5. Buy Suitcase Fusion 5 full product, get a $20 Amazon.com Gift Card. Buy Suitcase Fusion 5 upgrade, get a $10 Amazon.com Gift Card.
The offer ends December 13, 2013, so act quickly.
Support Ending for Suitcase Fusion 3
As of September 15, 2013, support will be discontinued for Suitcase Fusion 3. To continue to receive support, you must upgrade to Suitcase Fusion 5, which I reviewed last week.
Upgrade pricing up to 50% off the full product price for Suitcase Fusion 5 is available for Suitcase Fusion 3 users.
Reasons to upgrade to Suitcase Fusion 5:
If you’ve been holding on to Suitcase Fusion 3, now is the time to upgrade.
Suitcase Fusion 5: Ready for takeoff!
When I reviewed Suitcase Fusion 4 in May of last year there was plenty of new features that made for a sexy upgrade. With Suitcase Fusion 5, Extensis has chosen to focus on improving existing tools and stability, rather than adding to an already stellar feature set.
Existing users will find Fusion 5 quite comfortable. New users should read my previous review for a complete breakdown of all the features and know that Fusion 5 is a solid upgrade.
The biggest selling point of Fusion 5 is full compatibility with Adobe Creative Cloud as well as Creative Suite 6. This is a big selling point, more for Adobe than Extensis, if you ask me. Life is generally ok with an older version of Creative Suite, but if your Font Management app isn’t compatible with your design app of choice, life is miserable. (more…)
Suitcase Fusion 5 brings Creative Cloud compatibility
Extensis announced the immediate availability of Suitcase Fusion 5, the latest version of the professional-grade font manager.
I reviewed Suitcase Fusion 4 just over a year ago, and I’m looking forward to putting this latest version through its paces and sharing my thoughts soon.
Suitcase Fusion 4 gains Adobe Creative Suite 6 compatibility
I reviewed Suitcase Fusion 4 just about a month ago and mentioned that Adobe CS6 compatibility was surely on the way. This week, Extensis released an update that does just that.
The update brings auto-font activation to InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop CS6, as well as the new Font Panel plugin for ID and AI (a Photoshop version is in the works).
If you’re a current Suitcase Fusion 4 user, simply visit the Suitcase Fusion menu and select Check for Updates to get the latest update. If you haven’t tried Fusion 4 yet, download the demo and give it a shot.
Extensis Suitcase Fusion 4: New version brings useful features
Extensis has released Suitcase Fusion 4, and brought with it a few new features that designers will love. In doing so, Extensis has raised the bar for other font managers when it comes to integrating fonts in the print and web world.
For years (long before the OS X days) my font manager of choice has always been Extensis Suitcase. It’s always been reliable and worked as smoothly as can be expected. But when Fusion 3 was released, I began noticing problems. Nothing major, but it took forever to load, and the Fusion Core System Preference began to forget to launch quite often. It could have been my system and not Fusion, but I never found out. Overall it just wasn’t a smooth experience, so I switched to Font Explorer X and all was well… for a while. When Apple released Lion, however, Font Explorer began exhibiting all sorts of issues for me. As luck would have it, Extensis just released Suitcase Fusion 4. Within hours, it became my preferred font manager. Again.
At first glance, Suitcase Fusion 4 doesn’t appear to have changed much beyond the new icon (part of their new corporate re-branding). But use it for an hour or so and you begin to see they’ve changed much more than just its icon.
For starters, the problems I was having with slow load times of Suitcase, as well as Adobe InDesign with the auto-activation plugin installed, have gone away completely. Suitcase and InDesign both launch quickly and continued to run smoothly over the last two weeks. And because the Fusion Core is part of the app itself, there’s no System Preference amnesia to deal with anymore.
The Suitcase Fusion 4 interface will look familiar to existing users
Integration
The first thing I noticed was that Extensis’ WebINK technology is fully baked-in to Fusion. Your purchased WebINK fonts show up right in Fusion’s font source list, as well as approximately 4,600 other available fonts for purchase and use on your websites. I actually use WebINK for the fonts you see here on The Graphic Mac – so it’s nice to have access to them right in Suitcase. But Extensis didn’t stop there.
You also have Google’s Web Fonts available at your disposal for use in any application. Google Web Fonts show up in the source list as a separate library as well, so there’s no confusion as to where a font came from.
Fusion feature goodness!
All the past and expected features such as auto-activation in Adobe CS apps, font smart sets, and identification/keyword tools are available in Suitcase Fusion. The ability to leave fonts in place or add them to the Fusion Vault is still there (I prefer to use the Vault to prevent corruption and make backups easier), but a few more goodies are really what makes Fusion 4 a great upgrade.
Fusion 4 introduces an independent font panel into Adobe Creative Suite apps that not only allows you to preview fonts, but create customized font digests for specific projects. The panel requires CS 5 or higher to work.
On the maintenance front, you can now check for font corruption and clear font caches right from within Fusion – avoiding the need for other 3rd party utilities. But the new feature that really made my day was QuickMatch.
Selecting an available font from your installed fonts list and clicking on the new Quick Match icon displays a list of other fonts in your library that closely resemble the selected font.
OH HELL YEAH!!!
QuickMatch offers a slider to adjust the relevance of the matched results. You can also tick a checkbox to limit the results by font style or classification, making the task of finding just the right font quite simple.
To me, Quick Match is the killer feature that every designer will absolutely love!
And how’s this for cool… you can load an existing website (right from the web) and apply any font in your collection to the site to see what it will look like. Awesome! This is particularly useful if you plan on using the WebINK or Google Web Fonts technology I mentioned above.
Suitcase Fusion 4 is available for Mac OS X 10.5.8 and higher on an Intel Mac, and works with Adobe Creative Suite 3 and higher (I’m sure a CS6 plugin update will arrive shortly after Adobe releases CS6 to the public). The full version costs just $99.95, and upgrades from Fusion 2 or 3 cost just $49.95. A demo is available to see if Suitcase Fusion 4 is right for your preferred workflow.
With this latest updated, Extensis has cemented its dominant lead in the font management market, in my opinion. And it has certainly earned its place back in the Dock of my Mac Pro and MacBook Air.
If you’re in the market for a new font manager, or feel the need to use one for the first time, I HIGHLY recommend giving Suitcase Fusion 4 a try.